US willing to wander off the map if it means maintaining 'the Big Mo'

US policy continues to stress the importance of movement in the Middle East peace process, writes Glenn Kessler.

President George Bush's emerging strategy for restarting the Middle East peace process is a throwback to a concept first articulated by his father in the 1980 presidential race: "the Big Mo". Momentum - or the appearance of movement - is the key to success. From that, officials believe, will flow additional momentum and even more success.

This approach appears to be based on a practical desire to be flexible. Though the Administration officially has embraced a peace plan known as the "road map" - a document drafted last year with the Europeans and the United Nations - Administration officials are prepared to largely abandon the plan's details.

By addressing Israeli concerns, the Administration was able to win reluctant endorsement of the plan from the Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, last weekend.

That paved the way for a possible summit meeting next week between Bush, Sharon and the new Palestinian Prime Minister, Mahmoud Abbas. That, in theory, would open the door for Israeli actions to ease the suffering of Palestinians and a Palestinian crackdown on terrorist groups. A CIA team has already departed for the region to help the Palestinians reform their security services.

But the quest for momentum has also caused officials to delay dealing with some of the hard issues that could derail the process.");document.write("

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It's unclear what would happen after the presidential summit - or even if enough momentum could be created to sustain the process through the presidential election season in the US, when candidates are wary of puting too much pressure on Israel.

The depth of the outstanding issues was illustrated this week when Israel disclosed the 14 conditions it has given the Bush Administration for full participation in the process, which envisages the creation of a provisional Palestinian state by the end of this year and a fully independent and sovereign state by 2005.

Palestinian representatives said the conditions would undermine the plan's scheme for building confidence between Israelis and Palestinians by having both undertake simultaneous steps towards reducing violence and restoring Palestinian control over the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"It was their whole wish-list," a senior Palestinian official said after reading the 14 conditions in Israeli newspapers. "It would gut any provisions that would have made it [the road map] meaningful to the Palestinians."

Israeli and US officials said the text overstated the seriousness of Israeli difficulties with the road map, and that it was drawn up to ease Sharon's domestic political considerations. Several officials said only three key points - mentioning a Saudi peace initiative in the road map, the right of Palestinians to return to their homes in Israel that they left during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and when to address the settlement issues - were said to constitute major Israeli objections.

Israeli settlements in the West Bank are a major stumbling block. Israeli officials, in their discussions with US officials, have signalled a willingness to dismantle some of them.

The road map also calls for a settlement freeze in the initial phase. But differences have not been resolved over what constitutes legal and illegal settlements, whether settlements can grow "naturally" through population growth and whether "further action on settlements" will be taken before final status negotiations, as described in the plan.

While Bush has frequently said that he envisages a Palestinian state within three years, Sharon appears intent on a long-term interim arrangement that leaves the Palestinians with a provisional state for many years. It is unclear how the Administration proposes to bridge this gap in perception.

The Israelis have also made it clear that little movement can be achieved unless the Palestinians take real action against militant groups. But US officials glumly concede that the Palestinian security forces have fragmented almost into a warlord structure, with little effective control exercised by the new Palestinian security chief.

Still, momentum is the order of the day. An Israeli official said Sharon had noted an upsurge in global terrorism and the "stalling of things in Iraq", and concluded that Bush "needed a major success to move forward".